


Slipping

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [63]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, M/M, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24216649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Words have weight and meaning to them, apparently.
Relationships: Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Series: DS Extras [63]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	Slipping

"We are running low on papyrus again."

Wilson looked up from the racks he was working on, ropes coiled in his claws and the bare skeleton of the structure finally finished and staying balanced this time. A few of them were older, made many seasons ago, but time has worn a couple down and their collapse signalled that there needed to be a round of repairs on everything in camp. He wasn't the only one working on fixing everything up or crafting new pieces, but right now the others have left earlier to gather up everything that would be needed.

Leaving him and Maxwell to the busy work of using what little was left until new supplies were brought back. The older man was currently unpacking an old chest, the wood dented and scarred from numerous hound attacks and darkened from rain rot at the base, and he glanced over to Wilson briefly, dark eyes low and squinted in his usual scowl as he waved a small roll of blank papers at him.

"You should mind how many of these you use to scribble your blueprints on, or someone might cause a stir and give you trouble about it."

"I've already talked to Wickerbottom and she's fine with it as long as I go out and gather a few reeds every now and then." Wilson rolled his eyes as the older man shook his head, placing the roll of hand made papers to the side atop some blocks of cut stone. "I'll do it later, if you're feeling so worried about it."

A cheeky tone crept into his voice, twitched the corner of his lips into a half grimace, near smile, but all Maxwell did was huff at him and turn his attention back to the chest.

"A trip to the swamps is not quite what I recall you wanted to spend your day on." The older man, kneeled by the chest and moving slow, took out a few chunks of marble and then a round leather bag of marble beans, setting them aside as he continued to talk. "Once the other's get back I suppose I will go. I need to return that hat Wurt had oh so kindly lent Webber, it's starting to smell."

Wilson knew the hat Maxwell spoke of and honestly thought it was a neat gift, especially since the children liked playing with the mushroom spores that fell off the funcap and floated aimlessly around for a few hours. They probably had a few more days before the mushrooms spoiled completely, but he supposed all the rain hasn't helped with the odor much. 

"I can do that, you know. Tying up racks won't take me all day." For emphasis Wilson coiled up and knotted a rope about one side of a rack, pulled taunt and stabilized to his satisfaction without losing much time. "And I can catch a few mosquitoes on the way, the kids used up all the water balloons last summer and there's only a few more weeks of spring left."

"You have got other things to do, don't bother." Maxwell dismissed his words with a shake of his head, Wilson frowning at him as the old man piled up lengths of rope from the chest, the faint flash of irritation lighting on his face as he wrangled with a few uncoiled ones that dropped onto the damp dirt. "I will take care of it, stay here and do what you have planned to do today, love."

Wilson froze for a second, waited, but Maxwell was currently preoccupied trying to untie the knotted ropes and he wasn't noticed. 

It wasn't a slip of the tongue, though as he forced himself to untense sometimes he wished it was. 

It started, what, a few seasons ago? Last summer at the earliest, maybe, or perhaps that winter, though Wilson could hardly remember the exact _when_ and instead only found himself thinking of how many times he's heard that word slip from his partners lips. Not often, mind, but it was becoming common enough.

Too common. After a moment, listening in as Maxwell cursed under his breath and tugged at the knotted ropes he now had to deal with, Wilson set his own atop the half complete rack and walked his way quietly over. Watching over the other man's shoulder as he tugged and pried at the new, nasty knots in the woven tight grasses, Wilson whistled out a breath as he crouched down by Maxwell's side, lending a hand.

"...Do you have to call me that?"

"Hm?" 

The old man paused, brow knitted up and clearly confused as Wilson wiggled his claws into one particularly stubborn knot and started to untie the rope, but he didn't meet the older man's eye, gaze focused downwards.

"What you just said, and what you've been saying for awhile. Why?"

There was a beat of silence, Wilson finally untying the knot and running his claws down the rope to straighten it, going to the next of the big mess, and when Maxwell spoke up he sounded...stilted, hesitant.

"It is a term of endearment, is it not?"

Wilson nodded, bit his tongue and kept quiet, his silence enough to spurn the old man to keep talking. 

"And, I assumed that you...that it was a fine term to refer to you with."

The next nasty knot undone in his claws, Wilson brushed a talon to the knotted mess under Maxwell's hands, a light poke making the older man draw back and let him get back to work.

He supposed that should be answer enough, good enough, but…

What was that saying, the one about assuming?

"I, um…" Wilson straightened up, finally turned his gaze to lock with the older man's pitch black shiny eyes, one last steeled breath, in and out, escaping him as he untensed his jaw. "I would like to ask you that I'd rather it not be."

There. He said it, got to the point, after months of trying to wrangle the when and where and how of it all.

Because, as judging from the slightest of twitches, falling and pull and deepening of wrinkles on the old man's face that not just anybody could spot, Wilson knew that what he had said had a meaning to it that couldn't be ignored.

As expected, Maxwell read it a hint wrong.

"Are you saying that I shouldn't consider you as such, pal?"

And there was the prickling in the air, the bristling that the old man hid quite well for the most part, but Wilson knew him all too well and everything underneath the mask Maxwell had was very obviously reacting rejectedly.

Which wasn't Wilson's point, actually.

"No, no I'm not. Not at all." He shook his head, gaze steady and not breaking as he looked Maxwell in the eye, held and unperturbed, not at all hasty or quick to the mark as he spoke. He felt as if he shouldn't have to explain himself in this, one of the few times he didn't want to bring it fully up, and he wouldn't rush to answer the other man when it was obvious that his words had affected Maxwell negatively. "I would just rather not be called that."

This time there was only a few moments of tense quiet, watching Maxwell as Maxwell watched him, almost wearily oddly enough, before there was the drooping of the old man's shoulders and the whistled rattle of his lungs, gaze pulling away to look elsewhere, anywhere but at him, and a last affirmative nod.

"Of course, pal. I will...keep that in mind."

Maxwell's gloved hands were loose in his lap, ropes forgotten, and Wilson easily finished up untying them, then quietly rolling the coils up and setting them aside.

"I'll go to the swamp and get my own chores done today, Maxwell." He got to his feet, watched as the older man idly picked at his worn sleeves before reaching over and bundling up the neat ropes, more careful this time as he set them together and in place next to the chunks of unrefined marble. "I'll tell Wurt you said hi, okay?"

For a moment he almost believed there would be no answer, or at least a sullen wave of a mood to fall, but Maxwell's voice was steady, polite as he gave Wilson a small nod of his head, avoiding his gaze all the while.

"Alright then, Higgsbury. I will tell the others when they get back."

Wilson nodded, a companionable pat to the older man's shoulder, and it was certainly a weight off his shoulders, getting that over and done with.

He knew it hadn't been meant as anything malicious, or anything even overbearing, but at the end of the day Wilson did not take kindly to be called anything but who he was.

Ironically enough, it had been near the same when Webber had asked him if they could call him father, or dad or pa or some other such familial name. They had been nervous asking him, and when they saw the look on his face they had grown a bit high pitched, offering up more terms, almost desperate in ways Wilson didn't know how to comfort or even try to comprehend. It had deeply distressed him, but Webber had been worse off and had apologized profusely while almost looking as if about to burst into tears all the while so Wilson had taken matters into his own hands, or er, claws.

He had explained, calm and slow, that calling him that would not be the truth, no matter how much Webber believed, and that he didn't think it fit whatsoever, that he was not the child's father, he didn't think he could be anyone's father, even the thought was a bit too overwhelming at times. Wilson was not anyone's dad, and the very thought made him both horrified and repulsed.

He wouldn't make a good father, he knew, told himself, though he did not say such a thing to Webber at the time. He didn't think the kid could understand, this revulsion at picturing himself as someone having such utter command over another, over a child even, and the idea made him want to itch his claws up and down his arms and scrape away this filmy layer of half memory disgust at the thought.

Wilson may not remember much outside the Constant any longer, but the picture painted in his mind every time someone mentioned a "father figure" was not a good one.

Of course, this was not the same situation, not really, no. What Maxwell was saying was far from what Webber had asked of him, but thankfully the older man seemed to have taken it without too much trouble.

Again, the thought, the word, slip of the tongue or not, it graced him as Wilson set his sights on finishing up the drying racks as quickly as possible, and then to plan what he would take with him to the swamps. 

And he may not fully understand why he shivered at it, unpleasant and not at all comfortable with it in conjunction with his own name, but at the very least it wouldn't be something he'd have to hear out of context again.

It just wasn't him, Wilson thought to himself. Not right here, not right now. 

***

It was actually much later, a few days give or take, when the thought came idly crawling back and Wilson found himself playing an idea around in his head for a moment.

He had the time, lots of time with nightfall and the crackling soft firelight outside and the warm, humid tent air growing a hint stuffy already. He wasn't an idiot either, though he knew some would be loudly up to debate this.

The last few days were as close to normal as they could get, and yet Wilson noticed the faint reactions, the way Maxwell would ever so slowly shift away, give him his space subtly, hold his tongue and not cut him off or spout some antagonizing barb in the usual dark humor that no one found funny. If he hadn't known any better he would have chalked this up as a surprising win.

But he did know better, he knew Maxwell more than he could say for near anyone else here, and he knew how to read hurt when that dark scowling frown had been settled all too long on that old sour face. 

A part of him supposed he should have expected it, but he had given the benefit of the doubt. They _were_ partners, after all.

Still, whatever ill feeling hidden underneath hadn't festered too long just yet, especially with how tonight Wilson was on his back and warm ungloved hands were currently exploring his sides, sweeping up to pet over his ribs in familiar patterns. There was a mouth at his neck, thankfully going slow this time around and letting him close his eyes, sigh softly as his own claws held firm to bony shoulders, and the weight atop him wasn't a discomfort in the slightest.

The idle way those hands mapped his skin, dipping to flag at his hips and then rising back upwards, the general soft tone and carefully done manner of touching him, somehow was bringing up the past conversation of a few days ago.

One of his hands adjust, moved as his claws rose to brush through thinning hair, a low hum of appreciation at his throat and tilting his head upwards the slightest bit at the feeling, and Wilson swallowed a softer breath just to give himself a voice instead.

"You can say it, in here."

That gave Maxwell pause, hands stopping and then, after a moment, the slight shifting to sit his weight up, only the slightest hinted shine of pitch black eyes in the darkness of the tent. Wilsons whisper had broken through whatever focus the other man had been intent on, though he had to squint his eyes as one hand found its way upwards and stroked the sensitive skin of his neck in idle caresses. 

The confusion, and distracting way he kept touching him, was almost enough to make Wilson roll his eyes but he was far too lax to feel huffy about it. 

"You can call me that, when we do this." He rose his whisper a bit, watching the glinting faint shine of the other man's eyes, the light just barely reflected from the outside campfire through their shared tent. "You can call me anything, when we are both in here."

There was a pause, a hesitant stopping of movement as those words were processed, and Wilson could feel it this time, the sudden shaky relieved breath and relaxing of the shoulders, see the slightest tilt of his partners head and the glint of a reassured, sharp toothed smile.

"Ah, of course." There was movement back and Wilson shivered, caught his bottom lip with his teeth as warm lips dipped back to his neck, trailed up to catch the edge of his jawline. Those hands went back to their soothing paths, and he idly wiggled a moment at the touch, as warm palms pressed to his gut and then started to fall lower. "As you wish, my love."

This time the words had a weight to them, a meaning he caught and one that didn't seem so far fetched as it had earlier, outside of warm intimacy and in the open air. His own claws dragged slow through his partners thin hair, arching ever so slightly into the inviting touch and gentle affection, and Wilson let another heavy warm exhale escape him as he leaned into what Maxwell was giving him.

No slip of the tongue here, he thought to himself distractedly, and he felt all the better for it.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I don't really feel well enough to write "happy" things anymore but eh. It is what it is V^V


End file.
